By Scott Gilfoid: WBA featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (32-0-1, 18 KOs) will be defending his title on July 30 on Showtime Championship Boxing from the beautiful Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
The younger 27-year-old Santa Cruz has already spotted weakness in Frampton around the chin area. He questions Frampton’s punch resistance, and he plans on exposing that when the two of them get inside the ring next month on 7/30 in the United States.
Frampton was dropped twice by 22-year-old Alejandro Gonzalez in round one of their fight in July 2015 in El Paso, Texas. Gonzalez also hurt Frampton with a hard right hand to the head in the 9th round. Frampton was lucky that Gonzalez didn’t have more seasoning because he might have talent him out after dropping him twice in the 1st round with chopping shots to the head.
Another reason why Santa Cruz questions Frampton’s chin is because all the running around he does when he faces pressure. In Frampton’s last fight against Scott Quigg, he was wilting in the last six rounds of the affair in getting backed up and out-punched by the bigger and stronger fighter.
If Quigg had the sense enough to know that he had to fight hard in the first six rounds, he would have won a lopsided 12 round decision. Instead, Quigg gave Frampton too much space, too much respect, and too much kindness by not going after the 29-year-old Irish native to take him out.
Santa Cruz is the opposite of Quigg. He’s someone that isn’t going to give any opponent too much respect, and he’s definitely not someone that will fight in 1st gear for the first six rounds the way that Quigg did. Believe me, Santa Cruz will be shifting gears from the opening round and will be looking to take out the diminutive 5’5” Frampton as fast as he can. He knows he’s got a small fighter who is starting to get up there in age, and he’s going to be looking to take advantage of that.
“He [Frampton] has power and skills and he moves when he has to, but he has a weak chin,” said Santa Cruz about Frampton. “When he gets caught with a good punch, he goes down. He doesn’t like pressure and I have that. I’m looking forward to putting on an exciting show at Barclays Center and I hope I leave with lots of new fans.”
Santa Cruz is going to need to put a ton of pressure on Frampton because we’re likely going to see Frampton running and trying to set traps all night long. He’s going to fight like he did in his first fight against Kiko Martinez in September 2014, in which we’ll see a great deal of movement from Frampton. He’ll stop every once in a while and try and catch Santa Cruz coming in.
I think it could wind up being an awful to watch fight unless you like watching running and spoiling. The difference in this fight is that The 5’7 ½” Santa Cruz has a two and half inch height advantage over the 5’5” Frampton. What’s more important than Santa Cruz’s height advantage is his seven-inch reach advantage. That’s an incredible reach advantage for Santa Cruz, because he’s a fighter that has a powerful jab and he’s not reluctant to use it.
Santa Cruz used his long reach in his last two fights to jab the shorter 5’5” Kiko Martinez and 5’4 ½” Abner Mares to get the better of them on the distance. When the fighters were in close, Santa Cruz used his superior punching power and inside skills to get the better of them both.
Santa Cruz stopped Martinez in the 5th round last February and beat Mares by a 12 round majority decision in August 2015. The fight should have been a 12 round unanimous decision because Santa Cruz clearly beat Mares. Frampton went the full 12 round distance in beating Martinez by a 12 round unanimous decision in their rematch in September 2014.
The Santa Cruz vs. Frampton fight will be televised on Premier Boxing Champions on Showtime Championship Boxing on July 30. As of right now, WBA World middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (31-1, 28 KOs) is scheduled to fight in the co-feature bout against an opponent still to be determined. Former WBC 154lb champion Sergio Mora is being mentioned as a possible opponent for Jacobs. Also on the card is WBO World female featherweight champion Amanda Serrano (28-1-1, 21 KOs) defending her title against Calixta Silgado (14-6-3, 9 KOs) in a scheduled 10 round fight.